Executive Summary
- Almost all of FGB research involves data from human research
subjects
- All FGB researchers need some level of GDPR
awareness, particularly knowledge of when the GDPR does and does not
apply to their research.
- Data management practices appear slightly improved since 2019,
particularly data archiving, but there remain issues that continue to
arise despite numerous awareness campaigns within the faculty, such as:
- FGB researchers clearly want to participate in data sharing
practices, particularly sharing restricted access data upon request, but
many lack plans for how to carry this out.
Data Management Planning Practices
Questions asked:
Conclusions/recommendations
Has a DMP been written for the research project?
Overall response

By department

By research role

Was the DMP written using the VU’s DMPonline?
Overall response

By department

By research role

Has the data management plan been reviewed by a data steward?
Overall response

By department

By research role

Have research support resources been used in the planning of the
research project?
Use of resources
Overall response

By department

General resources used**
FGB-specific resources used**
Has the research protocol been pre-registered?
Overall response

By department

By research role

Where has the research protocol been pre-registered?**

Conclusions/Recommendations on DMP Practices
- DMPs are being written at a comparable rate to the previous
assessment in 2019
- Some confusion may exist for researchers in the Biological
Psychology department and the Cognitive Psychology section because their
dept/section often uses a generalized DMP for all research
- Uptake of DMPonline appears to be quite good, particularly amongst
PhDs
- To be expected due to required DMP course for 1st-year PhDs
- Use of research support resources is moderately good, particularly
of FGB-specific webpages, but usage of specific support topics should be
improved
- Specific support topics (privacy, security & archiving) are
underutilized particularly by ETP and BW research staff
- Pre-registration is not a standard practice for many researchers,
except for those in KNOP
- Awareness and reasoning for pre-registration will need to be
increased amongst researchers
Types of Data and Research Populations
Questions asked:
Conclusions/recommendations
Is the data used in the research project collected from and/or about
human beings?

NB: Two “No” responses to this question were changed to “Yes” because
upon investigation of the data types collected, they were clearly from
human beings (e.g. BSNs)
What research populations are studied in the research project?**
Overall response

By department

What types of data are used in the research project?**
Types of data asked about in the survey included general data types &
specific data types. During analysis a basic risk categorization level
was applied to the data types reported.
General types of data**
Overall response

By department

Specific types of data**
Overall response

By department

Specific types of data classified into risk categories**
Overall response

By department

What software programs are used to collect (some of) the data?**
Overall response

By department

Where are data used in the research project stored?
All data in one location
Overall response

By department

With data protection measures

Data in various locations**
Storage locations listed in the survey

Storage locations listed in the survey plus data protection
measures

Other storage locations reported by respondent

Data risk categories in various locations**
Overall response

By department

By research role

Other storage locations - overall response

What data protection measures are used?**
Overall response

By department

What forms of physical data are used in the research project?**
Overall response

By department

How are the physical data stored and protected?**

Destruction or preservation of physical data
Biological data
What happens to the biological materials after they have been fully
analysed?

Paper & physical audiovisual data
Are the paper & physical audiovisual data digitized?
Overall response

By department

What happens after the paper & physical audiovisual data are
digitized?
Overall response

By department

What documentation is created and maintained to ensure proper the data
can be properly interpreted?**
Overall response

By department

Documentation standards
Overall response

By department

How are the code scripts that are used for processing and analysing data
managed?**
Overall response

By department

Conclusions/Recommendations on data & research populations
- Almost all of the data studied at FGB comes from human beings either
directly or indirectly (i.e. data reuse). This means the GDPR needs to
be in the back of our minds for basically all FGB research; this does
not mean the GDPR always applies, just that all FGB researchers
need to be aware that there’s a high likelihood it could apply to their
research.
- 7% of FGB researchers are collecting BSNs or other national ID
numbers, with the highest rates in KNOP. It is imperative that
researchers understand that we are not allowed to collect BSNs for
research purposes, even reimbursement purposes.
- Very few alternative responses were provided by respondents for
types of research subjects or data, meaning the faculty has a good sense
of what populations and data types are being used regularly in the
faculty
- This information will be used as a starting point to define best
practices and protocols for these regularly studies data/populations to
avoid researchers needing to reinvent the wheel with every research
project
- Most researchers store their data in multiple locations, and there
appears to be fairly good usage of the VU standard storage options,
Research Drive and SciStor.
- A fair amount of data is still stored on computer hard drives and/or
external hard drives/USB sticks; it is therefore imperative that
researchers keep these devices safe and clean up the data from these
drives when it is no longer needed
- A fair amount of data is stored in “other” options, but
unfortunately no further information was provided on what most of these
other options are. We should continue to encourage and promote the use
of the three standard FGB storage options: YODA, SciStor and Research
Drive, as well as Teams in some rare cases.
- Some undesirable options for storage, such as DropBox, are still
used, but fortunately this is fairly infrequent.
- The vast majority of physical data produced in the faculty is paper
data
- Most respondents are aware of the need to maintain the original
physical data for the same duration as any digital copies, which is VU
policy.
- Within KNOP, more than half of respondents who digitize their paper
materials go on to destroy them, which is generally undesirable under VU
policy (and, where applicable, WMO regulations). KNOP should ensure that
their researchers are fully aware of when it is and isn’t appropriate to
destroy paper materials after digitization. This is also a point of
concern, to a lesser extend for ETP.
- Most data documentation takes the form of the code scripts used to
process and analyse the data. Fortunately, very few researchers generate
no documentation, but less than 40% create Readme files even though this
is a requirement for all data that are used for research publications
per the faculty archiving guidelines
- About 10% of respondents from BW report not producing any
documentation; this is a point of concern that should be addressed in
the department to ensure that BW data is understandable to its own
researchers and to others
- Data documentation standards remain a complicated and unclear topic
for researchers; REPS is responsible for clarifying this issue
- About 10% of respondents from KNOP and POW report no management of
their code scripts, not even writing comments in their code. This is a
practice they can improve by simply ensuring that the scripts or
syntaxes they write include some basic comments of the process the
researcher used.
Archiving Practices
Questions asked:
Conclusions/recommendations
Will the data used in the research project be archived?
Overall response

By department

By research role (researchers only)

If data won’t be archived, what are the reasons for not archiving?**

When will data used in the research project be archived?**
Overall response

By department

How long will data used in the research project be archived?
Overall response

By department

Where are the data used in the research project archived?
All data in one archive
Overall response

By department

Data in several different archives**
Archives listed in the survey

Other archives reported by respondent

Data risk categories in various archives**
Overall response

By department

By research role

Other archives locations - overall response

Are physical forms of data archived?
Overall response

By department

Where are physical forms of data archived?**

How are third parties made aware of the archived data used in the
research project?**
Overall response

By department

Conclusions/recommendations on archiving practices
- Plans to archive data have greatly improved since the previous
assessment
- KNOP & POW should investigate their higher rates of not
archiving data
- BioPsy may have reported lower rates of archiving due to confusion
of roles & responsibilities for researchers regarding archiving
- Archiving rates appear much lower amongst assistant professors
compared to other researcher roles; this may need to be addressed
- Most common reasons for not archiving were not knowing how to or the
reuse of existing data
- Role for REPS to improve understanding of practices and clarity on
how to handle reused data and archiving
- Good numbers for archiving once research is complete, however rates
of archiving as soon as a research article is published should be
improved
- When data are all archived in one location, YODA appears to be the
primary archive used, which is the preferred solution for FGB
- 6% of respondents reported archiving all data on a USB or external
hard drive, which while small is still a major concern, particularly for
ETP and BW
- When data are archived in several locations, “other” archives were
the primary location, but respondents provided no indication as to what
these “other” archives are.
- YODA uptake when data are archived in multiple locations is much
poorer, and unfortunately far to much data in these cases is “archived”
on computer hard drives or USB/external hard drives
- The faculty needs to continue to improve awareness of YODA as the
preferred archive for almost all FGB data, with OSF as an additional
option for archiving documentation
- Archiving of physical data appears to be fairly high, however ETP
should investigate if physical data archiving rates can be improved
- Physcial archiving locations remain unclear to researchers; REPS
should continue to improve awareness
- Rates of archived data registration in PURE are fair (~25%), but
need to be much higher as PURE registration after archiving is required
for all archived datasets; REPS will continue with awarenss on
this topic. BW should particularly look to improve these practices
- Most commonly researchers cite providing information in the research
article, but the VU requires PURE registration
- ~10% of respondents (~20% of BW) do not do anything to make third
parties aware of archived data; this needs to be improved, particularly
within BW, as these practices are the bare minimum for making data
findable
Data Reuse and Research Publishing Practices
Questions asked:
Conclusions/recommendations
Will the data used in the research project be available for others to
reuse?
Overall response

By department

By data risk category

If data won’t be available for reuse, why not?**

Has consent been obtained for reuse of data used in the research
project, where applicable?
Overall response

By department

By data risk category

How are third parties made aware of restricted access data?**
Overall response

By department

For which purposes may the data used in the research project be
reused?**
Overall response

By department

By data access level

How will others be informed of these reuse purposes?**
Overall response

By department

By data access level

Is there a plan for handling requests to access restricted access data?
Overall response

By department

Who will handle requests to access restricted access data?**
Overall response

By department

Has the plan for handling access requests been documented somewhere?**
Overall response

By department

What hurdles have been faced with open access publishing of research
articles?**
Overall response

By department

Conclusions/recommendations on data reuse and research publishing
practices
- FGB researchers clearly want to make data available for reuse, but
many (~60%) plan to provide access to (some) data upon request
- Plans to share data have improved greatly since 2019 when only ~50%
of research planned to share their data
- Support for the handling of restricted access data is particularly
important for KNOP & POW
- ETP overwhelmingly openly publishes data, but investigations are
needed to see if this is being done in a GDPR-friendly manner
- Many researchers are openly publishing data that could be higher
risk and many more are not openly publishing lower risk data
- Additional support on understanding data risks and when data should
and shouldn’t be shared openly is an absolute requirement going
forward
- Lack of consent was the primary reason for not sharing data if it
won’t be shared
- Improving and clarifying consent procedures around data reuse are
absolutely necessary
- A sizeable number of researchers (20% overall and 33% for BW)
believe consent is not necessary to reuse data because the data are
anonymous/anonymized
- Currently, consent practices do not appear to line up well with the
risks posed by the data and there appears to be confusion on what
consistutes anonymous/anonymized data
- Further investigation into this topic is necessary to determine how
accurate that conclusion is, and how to better support researchers on
this topic
- Similarly to the archiving practices, most researchers make others
aware of data that can be reused via information in a research article
- This is a reasonable option, but shouldn’t be the only option. Data
are much less likely to be found for reuse if they are only mentioned in
passing at the end of an article
- PURE registration of datasets is also necessary for the VU to
monitor data archiving and data publishing practices, but only 23% of
respondents register their datasets in PURE
- More than half of researchers reported that their data will only be
used for new research questions, but ~25% have no plans to inform
potential uses about this limitation
- The lack of documenting and reporting on reuse purposes is
particularly high for BW at 35%
- ~30% of publicly available data will not include any information on
reuse purposes, which prevents that data from being appropropriately
reused, particularly if the data is only to be used for new research
questions (>60% of publicly available data is intended to only be
reused for new research questions)
- Almost 50% of researchers with restricted access data do not have a
plan for handling data access requests
- This is particularly concerning for KNOP and POW for which,
respectively, 60% and 67% of respondents do not have a plan
- These rates for KNOP and POW are about the same as in 2019; the
reporting from other departments in 2019 may not be reliable due to
small response rates, but at the time, 100% of respondents from the
other three departments reported that there is a plan in place for
handling data access requests.
- Over 20% of respondents with a plan have not documented the plan and
>10% do not know if the plan is documented
- The most commonly cited party who will be responsible for handling
data access requests is the PI and then first author.
- Most researchers (>50%) report not facing any hurdles when
publishing their research articles as open access.
- The most commonly faced issue, particularly for BioPsy, is that the
VU doesn’t have an agreement with the journal the researcher wishes to
publish in.